Does your child follow smartphone ground rules?

Millions of smartphones were purchased over the holiday season and gifted to bright-eyed tweens and teens. So when we stumbled across this intriguing post highlighting how one mom set ground rules for her 13 year-old son’s smartphone use, we were inspired to ask for your thoughts on the subject.

Here’s the 18-point contract:

“Dear Gregory

Merry Christmas! You are now the proud owner of an iPhone. Hot Damn! You are a good & responsible 13 year old boy and you deserve this gift. But with the acceptance of this present comes rules and regulations. Please read through the following contract. I hope that you understand it is my job to raise you into a well rounded, healthy young man that can function in the world and coexist with technology, not be ruled by it. Failure to comply with the following list will result in termination of your iPhone ownership.

I love you madly & look forward to sharing several million text messages with you in the days to come.

1. It is my phone. I bought it. I pay for it. I am loaning it to you. Aren’t I the greatest?

2. I will always know the password.

3. If it rings, answer it. It is a phone. Say hello, use your manners. Do not ever ignore a phone call if the screen reads “Mom” or “Dad”. Not ever.

4. Hand the phone to one of your parents promptly at 7:30pm every school night & every weekend night at 9:00pm. It will be shut off for the night and turned on again at 7:30am. If you would not make a call to someone’s land line, wherein their parents may answer first, then do not call or text. Listen to those instincts and respect other families like we would like to be respected.

5. It does not go to school with you. Have a conversation with the people you text in person. It’s a life skill. *Half days, field trips and after school activities will require special consideration.

6. If it falls into the toilet, smashes on the ground, or vanishes into thin air, you are responsible for the replacement costs or repairs. Mow a lawn, babysit, stash some birthday money. It will happen, you should be prepared.

7. Do not use this technology to lie, fool, or deceive another human being. Do not involve yourself in conversations that are hurtful to others. Be a good friend first or stay the hell out of the crossfire.

8. Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person.

9. Do not text, email, or say anything to someone that you would not say out loud with their parents in the room. Censor yourself.

10. No porn. Search the web for information you would openly share with me. If you have a question about anything, ask a person – preferably me or your father.

11. Turn it off, silence it, put it away in public. Especially in a restaurant, at the movies, or while speaking with another human being. You are not a rude person; do not allow the iPhone to change that.

12. Do not send or receive pictures of your private parts or anyone else’s private parts. Don’t laugh. Someday you will be tempted to do this despite your high intelligence. It is risky and could ruin your teenage/college/adult life. It is always a bad idea. Cyberspace is vast and more powerful than you. And it is hard to make anything of this magnitude disappear – including a bad reputation.

13. Don’t take a zillion pictures and videos. There is no need to document everything. Live your experiences. They will be stored in your memory for eternity.

14. Leave your phone home sometimes and feel safe and secure in that decision. It is not alive or an extension of you. Learn to live without it. Be bigger and more powerful than FOMO – fear of missing out.

15. Download music that is new or classic or different than the millions of your peers that listen to the same exact stuff. Your generation has access to music like never before in history. Take advantage of that gift. Expand your horizons.

16. Play a game with words or puzzles or brain teasers every now and then.

17. Keep your eyes up. See the world happening around you. Stare out a window. Listen to the birds. Take a walk. Talk to a stranger. Wonder without googling.

18. You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together.

It is my hope that you can agree to these terms. Most of the lessons listed here do not just apply to the iPhone, but to life. You are growing up in a fast and ever changing world. It is exciting and enticing. Keep it simple every chance you get. Trust your powerful mind and giant heart above any machine. I love you. I hope you enjoy your awesome new iPhone. Merry Christmas!

xoxoxo

Mom”

As expected, it has ignited a lot of discussion with both parents and kids about whether a 13 year old – or tweens/teens of any age for that matter – should be forced to sign a smart phone contract. One of the rules that stood out for us was around sharing passwords. We work closely with partners like MediaSmarts on our TELUS WISE program – they’ve been a tremendous resource in educating how we can keep our children safe when using both the Internet and smartphones. They offer a relatively measured idea that could be easier for some tweens and teens to accept: have your kids write down their usernames and passwords for their smartphone, laptop and social media profiles on a piece of paper, then have them place this information in a sealed container or piggybank that you agree to access only in an emergency.

We also searched out other examples that we believe could be useful for parents exploring the possibility of formal smartphone rules or contracts with their kids:

If you agree that rules or contract is a good idea, what rules should parents outline for their kids? What’s worked for you? What hasn’t? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks everyone – finally, here a few additional resources that provide good background and support to help you decide whether it’s a good time to get a smartphone for your tween/teen:

I didn’t get my first cell phone until I could afford to buy my own as an adult. Even as a teen we were lucky to have dial-up internet ( I am in my mid-thirties)….times have changed and with change comes the unknown. Having a teen and tweens, I have experience with teen smartphone usage. A contract such as this would be plausible however I think some of the terms may be setting the teen up to fail. Regardless, I do not see any of these terms to be unreasonable; a smartphone comes with either a hefty price tag or a 2-3 year term contract with a cell phone service provider. Either way the parent has to put the phone in their own name with the responsibility of overages and replacement charges in the event of damage to the phone which is almost sure to happen with a teen user. The teen is given a choice, agree to the terms and have this amazing new gift but with it comes responsibility, responsibility that the teen will need to learn.

Personally I agree with some of these terms and feel face to face communication and manners are becoming more of a lost art; kudos to this mom for embracing technology while still trying to instill these values. As the mom pointed out in with her example of access to music, technology can be very beneficial to all age groups; I even use several age appropriate applications on my smartphone as learning tools with my toddler. Although the intention is good in #5, my 14 y/o sons teachers actually allow smartphone usage in class as a mini-computer/homework tool. I think the idea is well-intended but kids will be kids and when they are on their own phones, there is bound to be texting or other unwanted usage in class. On the dark side of technology, especially easily accessible hand-held technology like mentioned in #12, private sharing or even bullying is very real. My 11 y/o daughter recently was using my smartphone on an application called “Kik” and had a request from a classmate for her to send him pictures of her privates and offered to return the favour. These applications can be downloaded for free onto iPod’s/smartphones making it easy for kids this age to use these app’s as messaging systems. I recently found out that there is no history kept on this application; once the user logs out all history is lost. In this circumstance my daughter told me and her teacher resulting in the boy being disciplined by his parents however this happened to several of her friends and not one had mentioned anything to their parents or the teacher until my daughter had informed her teacher of the other girls involved. This scares me more, to think at a grade 6 level these girls were either too scared to tell an adult or that they thought it was normal. Sure there is some mobile safety education online but our kids in-school education needs to be revamped; sadly it seems it is far behind our ever-advancing technology and the younger the age of the users.

Thinking back to my teen years I didn’t believe my parents had the right to “invade” my privacy but there are so many more things teens have to deal with these days added to the usual temptations adolescence have to deal with, specifically a 24/7 invasion into your private home via the internet, if left unchecked. For this reason I believe parents these days have the right to know every password and to check up on their kids Facebook wall, text messages or web page hit history; it is crazy what these teens will “share” and not think anything of it until it’s too late. I have informed my kids not to do anything that they wouldn’t want me to read, that they wouldn’t want to be seen publicly or that they wouldn’t say/do face to face and then they should never have to worry if I happen to take a look through their history, messages, etc. For the most part I don’t have to worry, nor do I check up on my teen, but there have been times where it’s just a parent instinct that something my teen has told me isn’t quite truthful or the facts aren’t quite adding up;it is my job as a parent to ensure my kids are staying safe. As a parent I would like to see better tracking of the newer smartphone devices, similar to nanny apps where there is a master password that can only disable it, change passwords, delete history, etc. Being that younger users are more actively using smartphones, I think it’s excellent that companies such as Telus are taking steps such as the Telus Wise but I would like to see more of these teaching tools used in the schools and for smartphone manufacturers and/or service providers take an active role in protecting their safety with parental control options. I do not believe the parent should be scanning through messages as soon as the teen comes home every day but if there is a reason which may call for the parent to check up on their child, they should be able to do so. Until the child is old enough to purchase and maintain a smartphone contract, the rules are up to the parent.

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